Metro21 Attends CES 2021

Metro21 Executive Director Karen Lightman attended CES 2021 from January 11-14, 2021 to provide  her personal key takeaways into future-shaping insights and business growth trends from industry visionaries.

• The steady advancement of self-driving vehicles and digital innovations in passenger tech call for our cities to adjust and evolve. How are leaders in the space leveraging new trends to drive the adoption of next-generation vehicles and how will the future of mobility transform other industries?
• Key trends: sustainability, privacy and trust, choice
• Electric scooters & bikes work closest with cities to address first/last mile mobility
• Scooters are safest in bike lanes; bike communities are supporting improvement and expansion of bike lanes to accommodate them

• Cities must diagnose themselves to determine what kind of city they are
• Enable smart infrastructure to enable shared AVs like shuttles
• Improve safety using computer vision in addition to sensors
• Electrification and the demand it will put on cities is an incoming trend

• Provides a sensor/data platform for the public realm which mounts to light poles using computer vision to detect path of everything in streets
  • This is private and transmits anonymous aggregate information
• Flexible mobility is part of resilience plan that will ensure safety & trustworthiness
• Accommodate new vehicles in the public realm by having more flexible streets, digitizing activity to validate safety & policies
  • Will ensure built environment is more responsive and informative of policies
• Use data to inform decisions

Automotive Transformation: EVs and Connectivity featuring Masa Hasegawa and Jodi Stidham of Deloitte Consulting, Scott Beutler of Continental Automotive Systems, Inc., Joe Britton of Zero Emission Transportation Association, and Stephen Carlisle of General Motors.

• General Motors wants to offer EVs in every category by 2025

• Government role is to put incentives in place to make EVs more attractive so consumers choose only EV by 2030
• Affordability, incentives, battery cost are all going down, similar to used car market; Consumers should engage now
• GM is hiring more software engineers and centers
  • Need more collaboration to make the load outpace demand; cannot be too far ahead or will lose capital investment; also must engage with the community equitably